These release notes contain important information available at the time of the patch 7 release of Netscape Messaging Server 4.15. New features and enhancements, installation notes, known problems, and other late-breaking issues are addressed here. Read this document before you begin using Netscape Messaging Server 4.15.
An electronic version of these release notes can be found at the iPlanet documentation web site: http://docs.iplanet.com/docs/manuals/. Check the web site prior to installing and setting up your software and then periodically thereafter to view the most up-to-date release notes and manuals.
These release notes contain the following sections:
Netscape Messaging Server 4.15 Patch 7 includes:
The following bugs have been fixed in Netscape Messaging Server 4.15 patch 7:
Note: After you set or change a parameter, be sure to stop/start or refresh the service.
New parameters exist for antirelay and smtpd. (553900)
The following parameters have been added for antirelay:
For debugmode:x, x can be 0, 1 or 2:
0 gives you no debugging output (default for a release build).
1 gives you some debugging output (default for a debug build).
2 gives you some additional debugging output over 1.
For allowrouting:y, y can be 0 or 1.
0 allows no % relaying (default).
1 allows % relaying.
Routing is not allowed even if the sender authenticates.
The following parameter has been added for smtpd:
local.service.smtp.allowrouting
For local.service.smtp.allowrouting, the values can be true (for example, 1, On, True, or Yes) or false (for example, 0, Off, False, or No). By default this parameter is False. All addresses having a local part containing "%" will be rejected unless the parameter is set to true.
Concerning routed addresses of type 3—therefore, @host:sam@myhost.com—attempts are now made to deliver them, ignoring the route information (as allowed by the RFC). They will no longer be placed in the queue with an empty Host-To: field.
Nothing special is done with addresses containing "!" (bang). Netscape Messaging Server does not do anything special with them; if they are found in the directory lookup, they are delivered locally. Otherwise they are rejected. They are never routed.
A switch has been created for changing the default for a line terminator. (543845)
In an effort to accommodate messages from broken mailers that use carriage return (cr) or line feed (lf) as line terminators instead of the character sequence (cr)(lf) specified in RFC822, Netscape Messaging Server interpreted the character sequence (cr).(cr)(lf) as an end of message marker. This is sometimes the correct behavior, but is technically incorrect. Strictly it should only recognize (cr)(lf).(cr)(lf) as an end of message terminator. The following switch has been created:
local.service.smtp.requirecrlf
When this switch is set, it makes the MTA recognize only the character sequence (cr)(lf) as a line terminator.
Setting the site language during an installation. (545128)
When you install Netscape Messaging Server 4.15 patch 7 for the first time, not as an upgrade, in order to access the localized Messenger Express login screen, you need to set the site language as follows: ./configutil -o gen.sitelanguage -v {en|fr|de|ja|zh-CN}
The bracketed area, {en|fr|de|ja|zh-CN}, lists the language options available. You will choose one option; therefore, do not include the brackets, {}, or the pipe symbol, |.
On Solaris, blank spaces are not displayed properly in Messenger Express. (519298)
To prevent this behavior, the two following configuration parameters have been added:
local.service.http.plaintext.convspace
local.service.http.plaintext.tabsize
The local.service.http.plaintext.convspace parameter determines whether Netscape Messaging Server should convert white space, therefore 0x20 (for a space) and 0x09 (for a tab) in ASCII code point, to entity. The default is yes.
The local.service.http.plaintext.tabsize parameter determines the number of entities that will be used to replace a single tab character. The default is 8. Notice, it replaces a tab character with the number of entities. It does not work the way a real tab character does.
Note: After you set or change a parameter, be sure to stop/start or refresh the service.
Router shortcut routine breaks MTA behavior for Deliver-To (530257)
To provide an option for calling the shortcut routine, the following new configuration parameter was added:
local.service.smtp.doshortcutrouting
Values can be "yes" (the default) or "no". If "yes" the MTA calls the shortcut routine; otherwise, it doesn't.
SMTPd: Header rewrite loops on bogus From: address (521646)
To prevent the rewrites, the following new configuration parameter was added in SMTP-Router.cxx:
local.service.smtp.smtp-router.rewritefrom
Values can TRUE (the default) or FALSE. If FALSE, the From: head is not accessed regardless of the "smtprewritestyle" value.
Groups of long recipient addresses crash MTA (DoS issue) (523242)
To prevent long names from crashing the MTA, the following new configuration parameters were added:
local.service.smtp.smpt-accept.maxsenderlength
local.service.smtp.smpt-accept.maxrecipientlength
The default value for both parameters is 384 bytes.
Note: After you set or change a parameter, be sure to stop/start or refresh the service.
The "deliver -l" option is unable to deliver to users with "@domain" in their userid. (514641)
All domains are currently stripped from LMTP RCPT addresses. To fix this, a new command line switch has been added to deliver:
When the -s switch is given, only those LMTP RCPT addresses with a domain matching the argument to -s have the domain stripped. Without the -s switch, the behavior is as before, that is, all domains are stripped. To have deliver not strip any domains, give the -s switch a value that is not used as a domain. For example, use:
Recently restarted LDAP server cannot be used by Netscape Messaging Server because it is no longer part of the pool. (461709)
To correct the problem, a periodic refresh of the LDAP pool (periodically reopening the LDAP connections) can be performed to re-balance the load, including any LDAP servers that were recently restarted. To specify the periodic refresh, the following new configuration parameter was added:
The unit is "minutes". The default value is -1, which implies no refresh.
There is a known limitation of the Directory Server where the directory settings for the maximum number of file descriptors (FDs) may exceed the system's maximum number of FDs. If this occurs, ldappoolrefreshinterval may cause the directory to become unresponsive. For more information, see bug # 539363 in Known Problems and Limitations.
Unix Delivery defaults for User and Group ID prevent it from working properly. (410081)
The Unix-Deliver now uses a default uid of 0, rather than 1. The following configuration settings no longer need to be made:
setconf service.smtp.unix-deliver.defaultuid 0
setconf service.smtp.unix-deliver.defaultgid 0
The Envelope From field in messages is always rewritten and cannot be configured. (400251)
To correct the problem, a new configuration parameter has been added:
local.service.smtp.smtp-router.doenvelopefromrewrite
The value "yes" will cause the Envelope From field to be rewritten. The value "no" is the default.
Disabling Language Lookup Capability. (367911, 362966)
New configurable parameter. The MTA looks up the language to be used when it performs international functionality, as explained in Messaging Server Administrator's Guide. To circumvent this functionality, the following parameter has been added:
local.service.smtp.sitelanguageonly
When this parameter is set to "yes", the MTA ignores both the X-Accept-Language header in the sender's message and "service.smtp.domainlangtable". See also (367811, 362966) in the Corrections to the Documentation section.
The deliver command delivers mail directly to the message store accessible by IMAP or POP mail clients. (389534)
If you are administering an integrated messaging environment, you can use this utility to deliver mail from another MTA, a sendmail MTA for example, to the Messaging Server message store.
The deliver program has been changed so that the deliver command will create the user's mailbox automatically when the user does not exist. The deliver program gets the quota from LDAP. Quota check and update will work correctly. Use the deliver -c command to automatically create user's mailboxes.
Option to disable LDAP address search in the Personal Address Book. (389784)
This option has been added to address security and privacy concerns. Messenger Express allows a user to create an LDAP query that would give information about other users from the LDAP directory. The following parameter has been added:
local.service.http.allowldapaddresssearch
If the parameter is set to no, no LDAP queries will be allowed except for Personal Address Book queries. By default, LDAP queries are allowed by any user through modification of Messenger Express URLs.
HTTP service Proxy Domain behavior. (390241)
This option addresses security and privacy concerns. The following existing parameter is discussed:
service.http.proxydomainallowed
When set, the value is http:[server-IP], where [server-IP] is the IP address of the Messaging Server (or any other unlikely to match a client's address). This will only allow proxy logins from clients whose source IP addresses match the [server-IP] part of the filter.
This is described under Creating Access Filters for HTTP Proxy Authentication.
Mail Access Domain syntax. (390241)
The following existing parameter is discussed:
Starting with 4.15, the mailAccessDomain parameter supports multiple filters in a single attribute, separated by $, with either + or - denoting their disposition.
Full mailAccessDomain filter syntax is:
[+-] servicelist : clientlist ( $ [+-] servicelist : clientlist *
+imap imapmmp:ALL$-pop popmmp:ALL
This will make it so that user can only access imap and imapmmp (no ssl).
Messenger Express now supports sending authenticated SMTP messages (383050)
The following parameters have been added:
local.service.http.smtpauthuser
local.service.http.smtpauthpassword
These parameters allow someone using Messenger Express to receive the same authenticated SMTP messages that they would normally receive using Netscape Communicator.
For this to work properly, the user ID and password given to the mshttpd must be a store administrator; they must exist in the store.admins list (for example, admin and admin).
After setting these parameters, any mail received in Messenger Express from an authenticated Messenger Express user should have the word "Internal" appearing next to the From header in the Message View window. Authenticated mail from Messenger Express will display the authenticated SMTP user name in the header instead of the actual user.
The Resent-From header is always added when a message is expanded from a mailing list. (381555)
The following parameter has been added to give you the option of modifying this behavior:
local.service.smtp.smtp-router.addresentfrom
When this parameter is set to no, and a message is submitted to a group, the recipients of that message will not see the Resent-From header. In all other cases, the Resent-From header will appear.
New Parameter Added to adjust MTA Throttling. (386272)
The following parameter has been added to adjust MTA throttling:
local.service.smtp.throttlethreshold
Once the control queue is over the number set to this parameter, the server starts to throttle back the speed with which it accepts incoming connections. This makes it more difficult to grow the queue to an overwhelming number of messages.
If you set the throttle level too high, the accept rate will overwhelm the ability over the server to deliver all the messages it accepts.
The local.service.smtp.throttlethreshold parameter defines the throttle level. The default value is 2000 messages.
This parameter defines the maximum number of messages that will be processed at one time.
Raw 8-bit header causes Javascript errors in Messenger Express. (367500, 368796)
To avoid these errors, you can set the following parameters:
The fixlang parameter specifies the two-letter language ID (for example, ko for Korean). This parameter must be used in conjunction with the fixcharset parameter, which specifies the character set name (for example, EUC-KR). Setting these two parameters causes Messenger Express to lose its multilingual capability, but it will avoid the Javascript errors that result from setting the allow8bit parameter.
If the local.rfc822header.allow8bit parameter is set to no then any 8-bit data encountered in a header is displayed as ?. If this parameter is set to yes then headers are run through a validity checker so that valid 8-bit characters can be displayed intact and invalid characters are shown as ?.
Configurable received header required for High Availability or other multi-instance environments where you want to know which server is handling the mail. (383012)
The following parameter has been added:
local.service.smtp.smtp-accept.receivedcomment
This replaces the default Received: field that the message store puts into the header of each message received by the message store. The string can have a mixture of text and the positionally-dependent arguments (each %s). For example:
Field 1: Product Name "Netscape Messaging Server"
Field 2: Product Version "4.15"
Thus, a default release build received header looks similar to the following:
Received: from netscape.com ([207.1.151.156]) by host.domain.com
(Netscape Messaging Server 4.15) with ESMTP id FOM48800.N00 for
user@netscape.com; Wed, 19 Jan 2000 18:28:56 -0800
Setting the local.service.smtp.smtp-accept.receivedcomment configuration parameter as follows:
# ./setconf local.service.smtp.smtp-accept.receivedcomment "AOL-%s v%smsg-system1"
produces received headers similar to the following:
Received: from netscape.com ([207.1.151.156]) by host.domain.com
(AOL-Netscape Messaging Server v4.15 msg-system1) with
ESMTP id FOM6N700.S00 for user@netscape.com;
Wed, 19 Jan 2000 19:21:07 -0800
The parameter will be truncated to a max of 200 characters. You could even configure the parameter as "" and you should get the minimal received comment of ().
There are a few related extensions to the Protocol plug-in properties:
SMTP_PPP_RECEIVEDCOMMENT: overrides comment per-connection
SMTP_PPP_PRODUCTNAME: read-only access to the product name
SMTP_PPP_PRODUCTVERSION: read-only access to the product version
SMTP_PPP_INSTANCENAME: read-only access to the server instance name
The service.listenaddr parameter prevents Sendmail from listening to the localhost SMTP socket. (382098)
This issue has to do with the Sendmail emulator, which redirects the SMTP connections to the MTA from the standard connection. The following parameters can be set to solve this problem:
local.service.sendmail.listenaddr
If you set the local.service.sendmail.listenaddr, which is the IP address to listen on, then you should also set the local.service.sendmail.port.
For the port number, sendmail looks first for the value defined by local.service.sendmail.port (for example, 25). If this is not set, then it looks for the value defined by service.smtp.port, then for the smtp/tcp port number. If none of these is set, it defaults to 25.
To find the listen address, sendmail looks first for the value defined by the local.service.sendmail.listenaddr parameter (for example, localhost). If this is not set, then it looks for the value defined by service.listenaddr. If neither is set, then it defaults to localhost.
The MTA can leave deferred message bodies in the messages directory without references to the original messages. (382456)
Due to a race condition, deferred message bodies could be left in the messages directory without references to the original. This problem is fixed, and a configuration parameter is also available for tuning this.
The service.smtp.fileretry parameter is used to specify the number of times to retry internal renaming of a file before concluding an error exists. There is no default value; the internal value is 30.
In Messenger Express, a "File too large" message may appear after a large file is uploaded. (382477)
The service.http.maxpostsize parameter defines the maximum size of an HTTP POST that the server will attempt to upload.
If the file to be uploaded is larger than the value defined by service.http.maxpostsize, Messenger Express will upload at most 32K before returning the File too large error message.
Turning off the MTA's DNS cache.
DNS caching by the MTA can be turned off if you wish to have more control over the DNS behavior. To turn off the MTA's DNS cache, set the service.smtp.dnscachesize parameter to -1.
An entry in the log will show that the DNS cache was disabled.
Skipping the LDAP query in the MTA (useful for out-going mail relays). (379424)
To skip the LDAP query in the MTA, you can set the service.smtp.smtp-router.remotemaildomains parameter. For example, setting it to *.siroe.com makes the server treat everything.siroe.com as remote and skip the LDAP lookup on them. Setting the service.smtp.smtp-router.remotemaildomains parameter to an asterisk (*) character makes the server treat everything as remote.
Any regular expression can be used to set this parameter; for example, you could set the value to (*.siroe.com && *.company22.com) to make these addresses remote.
Fallback host for the MTA. (379426)
To define a "host of last resort" for the MTA, set the service.smtp.smtp-deliver.fallbackhosts to a list of x:y separated by $ as the delimiter. X represents the pseudo-regular expression specifying the domain and y represents the host name or IP address.
If y has multiple IP addresses, they are treated as the lowest priority MXs by the name server. If the "real" MXs for the domain are dead, then these pseudo MX IP addresses float to the top and stay there for the duration of the TTL.
If you set this parameter to *.host, then all deferred mail is forwarded to host.
The Personal Address Book (PAB) enables users to manage their personal address book entries including people and groups, and address to these entries when composing mail messages.
Note: Personal Address Book is supported only on Solaris.
Users can create, edit, or delete entries and groups in the address book.
From the Messenger Express main window, a user can click on the Addresses tab to go to the address book window, from which the following operations are available:
For information about installing Messaging Server 4.15 patch 7, refer to the Messaging Server Installation Guide at:
http://docs.iplanet.com/docs/manuals/messaging/nms41/install/contents.htm
Messaging Server 4.15 patch 7 installs the Personal Address Book but does not perform any PAB configuration. If you have not already installed and configured PAB, you must configure it by performing the following steps after installing patch 7:
These steps are described in the following sections.
The Perl script pabinst.pl is located in the serverroot/bin/MSG/install/bin directory. You can run perl with this script and the -d option as follows:
# serverroot/install/perl serverroot/bin/MSG/install/bin/pabinst.pl -d
You will be asked the following series of questions. Answer them as instructed.
Important: Follow the instructions closely and do not always accept the PAB default values.
Enter yes to configure the Personal Address Book; enter no or press Return if you do not want to continue with the configuration.
Enter the hostname of the Directory Server that will be the server for the Personal Address Book or press Return to accept the default.
Enter a new base DN in the format o=base DN (for PAB, it should be o=pab).
Important: The base DN you specify here must match the base suffix you specify when running dssetup. Do not press return and accept the default value unless it is the correct value for your configuration.
Enter cn=directory manager (or equivalent) or press Return to accept the default. Using the default bind DN and the base DN of o=pab as an example, the bind DN is set to uid=admin, o=pab.
Important: The bind DN you specify here must match the Users/Groups Administrator's UID you specify when running dssetup.
Important: The password you specify here must match the Users/Groups Administrator's password you specify when running dssetup.
Warning: If directory manager is used as the bind DN, the directory manager password you specify is exposed as ASCII text in the local.service.pab.ldappasswd parameter. Users can view this password with the configutil utility. Thus, it is recommended that ordinary users not be granted access to the directory that can access this parameter.
Enter the maximum number of Personal Address Book entries or press Return to accept the default.
After entering this information, the LDAP URL and Bind DN are displayed. For example:
PAB LDAP URL: ldap://directory_server_hostname:directory_server_port/o=pab
PAB Bind DN: cn=directory manager
Maximum Number of Entries: 500
Then, you are asked if you want to continue with the configuration:
Answer yes or press Return to accept the default if you want to continue with the configuration. Otherwise, answer no.
The Personal Address Book server is configured with the input values you specified.
After you have run the pabinst.pl script to configure the Personal Address Book, you should run the dssetup utility to configure the Directory Server for the Personal Address Book. To obtain the dssetup executable, untar the dssetup.tar file:
Note: The dssetup utility can also be downloaded separately from the Messaging Server 4.15 patch 7archive file. If you downloaded the archive dssetup-4.15p7.tar.gz file, you should uncompress this file first, then untar the dssetup.tar file contained within it. The dssetup version you need will be located in the SunOS5.6 subdirectory:
# gunzip dssetup-4.15p7.tar.gz
After all the files are extracted, update the Personal Address Book schema by running dssetup (either from the /MSG or /SunOS5.6 subdirectories) on the machine where the Directory Server is installed. You will see the questions listed below and you should answer them as instructed.
Important: Follow the instructions closely and do not always accept the default values.
Answer no since the Personal Address Book needs to update user/group schema, not the server configuration.
Answer yes or press Return to continue with the update of the user/group schema for the Personal Address Book.
Answer in the format o=base DN (for example, o=pab) to set up the organization for the Personal Address Book; this is where the Personal Address Book entry/group data will be stored.
Important: The base suffix you specify here must match the base DN you specified when you ran pabinst.pl.
Enter admin (or equivalent) and notice that the user uid=admin,o=base DN is created.
Important: The UID you specify here must match the bind DN you specified when you ran pabinst.pl.
Important: The password you specify here must match the bind DN's password you specified when you ran pabinst.pl.
Enter the admin's password again.
At this point, you will be given a listing of all the settings you specified. After the list, the following question will appear:
Answer yes or press Return if all the settings are correct; answer no to start over.
The dssetup utility will update the Personal Address Book schema on the Directory Server and then restart the Directory Server.
After the dssetup configuration is complete, the Personal Address Book installation and configuration is complete and the mshttpd service is restarted for the new configuration to be effective. New user accounts may be created from the Administration Console; users can then login to Messenger Express and start using the Personal Address Book.
To enable the Personal Address Book feature, set the local.service.pab.enabled parameter to 1. Set this parameter to 0 to turn this feature off. By default, this parameter is set to 1.
You can use configutil to set the local.service.pab.enabled parameter. For example, to set this parameter to 1, use the following command:
# ./configutil -o local.service.pab.enabled -v 1
Other configuration variables include:
This parameter specifies the bind DN used by Personal Address Book on the LDAP server (for example, cn=Directory Manager).
This parameter specifies the base DN in which Personal Address Book entries end up. The default is o=pab.
This parameter is used to add new attributes to a personal address book entry (for example, you want to create an attribute that doesn't already exist).
The pabdelete utility is installed in shared/bin. It is used to delete address book data after a user has been removed; it can also be used to remove all address book data if the Personal Address Book is uninstalled.
Note: If you run the uninstall utility, you must still run the pabdelete utility to remove address book data. The pabdelete utility is not run by uninstall.
Important: Before you run the pabdelete utility, check to see whether or not it has the correct permissions. The mode for pabdelete should be 755. If this is not the case, change the permissions on pabdelete with the following command:
The syntax for the pabdelete utility is as follows:
# ./pabdelete -D binddn -w password [options] uid
The binddn and password parameters represent the Bind DN and Bind password; respectively, and uid represents the user ID of the owner of the Personal Address Book you want to remove. Use ALL for the uid parameter to specify all users; however, the Personal Address Book root will not be removed.
The optional parameters are described below:
Option
Description
Preview the actions that would be performed by this pabdelete operation but do not actually perform those actions.
Shown below are some usage examples:
# pabdelete -D "cn=admin, o=siroe.com" -w xyz -b "ou=abooks, o=siroe.com" jsmith
# pabdelete -D "cn=admin, o=siroe.com" -w xyz -b "ou=abooks, o=siroe.com" -v -n ALL
Important: Messaging Server 4.15 patch 7 is available in two versions; a patch version and a complete version. The complete version of Messaging Server 4.15 patch 7can be installed on top of any previous Messaging Server release; the patch version can only be installed on top of Messaging Server 4.15.
If you are running a Messaging Server earlier than 4.15 and you want to install the patch version of Messaging Server 4.15 patch 7, you must first upgrade to version 4.15 before upgrading to version 4.15 patch 7. 4.15 patch 7 contains all fixes also included in 4.15 Patch 1, Patch 2, Patch 3, Patch 4, and Patch 5.
Messaging Server 4.15 patch 7 is available for the following platforms (refer to the Messaging Server Tuning Guide for required and recommended patches):
For Messenger Express access, Messaging Server 4.15 patch 7 requires a Javascript-enabled browser. For optimal performance, Netscape recommends using the following browsers:
For information about installing Netscape Messaging Server 4.15 patch 7, see:
http://docs.iplanet.com/docs/manuals/messaging/nms41/install/
contents.htm
See also Known Problems and Limitations, especially bugs 518186, 535482, and 535259 as well as Potential Problems and Solutions, especially bugs 534473 and 552015.
Messaging Server 4.15 patch 7 includes the following limitations and considerations, See also Potential Problems and Solutions later in this document for other issues that might affect product capability or use.
Program Delivery is not able to call a Perl script. (534483)
You cannot call a Perl script directly from Program Delivery.
Default maximum number of file descriptors (FDs) in the Directory Server may exceed the system's maximum number of FDs. (539363)
By default, the maximum number of file descriptors for the Directory Server is 4096. To reset the number of file descriptors to 1024, follow these steps:
On Solaris, Netscape Messaging Server will often fail and sometimes crash without nscd. (396392)
Enable the name service cache daemon (nscd) in order to avoid failures.
After an update installation, the login screen is in English (535486, 538963)
After a successful update installation and the restarting of the server processes, the login screen in the browser is English instead of Japanese.
After stopping the servers and before restarting them, execute the following commands:
server-root/msg-system/configutil -o gen.installedlanguages -v en,ja
server-root/msg-system/configutil -o gen.sitelanguage -v ja
Then start the servers. After the update the variables are reset to "en" by the installer. The above commands restore the previous values set before the update install was done.
Address Lookup from Netscape Netcenter doesn't work (537698)
Address lookups from PAB and local LDAP work, but not for "Netscape Netcenter". After Webmail login > compose > address > select "Search Netscape Netcenter": No matter what query you type, nothing is found.
After an update installation, servers are not restarted automatically (535482)
After an update installation on Solaris (without installing the PAB), the installer does not automatically restart the Messaging Server services (smtpd, imapd, popd, mshttpd, and stored processes). The old processes continue to run until they are stopped and the new processes are started. You must manually stop the old services and then start the new services. For information about starting and stopping the services, see the Netscape Messaging Server Administrator's Guide.
Upgrade from Patch 1 to Patch 4 fails if PAB is selected (524576, 535259)
During the installation of Patch 7, do not select the PAB. When the installation is complete, then run the PAB installer.
Installer reports incorrect LDAP URL if baseDN contains whitespace (518186)
The Netscape Messaging Server installer reports an incorrect LDAP URL if the baseDN contains whitespace (for example, o=my corporation.com).
Solution: Before installing the Messaging Server against a Directory Server with a baseDN that contains whitespace, verify that the "nsdirectoryurl" attribute under "cn=UserDirectory,ou=Global Preferences,ou=mcom.com,o=NetscapeRoot" has the correct value, and that the value for "nsdirectoryfailoverlist" is blank. If necessary, change these attributes to specify the correct values. Then, the Messaging Server installer will find the correct directory URL and baseDN.
PAB feature not supported on HP (394398)
The install script offers to install Personal Address Book on an HP machine. However, PAB is only supported on Solaris as described in the prerequisites and readme file.
If a server process crashes, shut down all services before restarting or another process might hang.
If the server process terminates unexpectedly, shut down all Messaging Server processes before restarting the server. Otherwise, the remaining processes might stop responding while waiting for locks held by the terminated process.
For a short period of time (default is 15 minutes), it is still possible to login the account of a user after that user is deleted in Netscape Console. (379080)
If you elect to turn the authentication cache on (for performance reasons), you must restart all the services on the server to make the deletion of a user(s) immediately effective.
If not, then turn off the authentication cache by setting the service.authcachettl to zero and restarting all the services.
If you use Netscape Communicator to send just a link, and then try to view the message in Messenger Express, the body of the message is blank. The same message in IMAP contains the link. (370998)
If you type some text before the link, then the message can be viewed without any problems.
On HP-UX 9000/800 systems, the SNMP subagent is unable to communicate with the master agent. (370650, 370694)
SNMP cannot be used on HP-UX 9000/800 systems.
Users of Outlook Express (any version) using IMAP may see read messages revert back to an unread state. (363547)
This is due to Outlook Express incorrectly using multiple connections to the same mailbox.
Program delivery suspend mode does not work. (352333)
Messages that are deferred to an alternate queue do not default back to the main queue when the alternate queue is deleted. (358478)
Do not delete alternate queues that still contain messages.
Messaging Server 4.15 Patch 2 does not support certmap plug-ins. (337413)
The RUN and SCAN commands in the Unsolicited Bulk Email (UBE) plug-in are disabled and are not supported. (334886)
Reconstruct -r loses authenticated sender info. (115193)
Netscape supports the XSERVER private extension for authenticating message submissions. Reconstructing a mailbox causes all of the authenticated sender information to be discarded.
If the upgrade process from Messaging Server 3.x to 4.15 is interrupted, run reconstruct -m before starting the server.
The reconstruct -m command corrects an inconsistent message store.
The login shell must be valid for Program Delivery to work. (326785, 336039)
The program delivery option will not work with shells that are not considered valid. On several UNIX systems, the /etc/shells file contains the path for all valid shells. If the file is missing or empty, the following are valid login shells for the user to which the message is addressed:
For more information about program delivery, see the Messaging Server Administrator's Guide.
If you change the quota limit for a user, the new limit does not immediately take effect. (319715)
If the user is already over quota, the limit will also take effect when the user logs in. This means a user might still receive "over quota" messages until the user receives a new message or until the user logs off and logs in again.
You can cause the new limit to take effect by sending mail to the user after you reset the quota limit.
The following section details the potential problems and solutions for the Messaging Server 4.15 patch 7 release. If a bug-report number follows the problem, please use that number when communicating with Technical Support concerning the problem.
See also Known Problems and Limitations and Corrections to the Documentation for other issues that might affect product capability or use.
An error sometimes appears when installing Personal Address Book. (534473)
You might encounter the following error while installing PAB:
Solution: This error can appear when the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable is set. Ensure that this variable is not set. If you have already started to install PAB, you will need to unset the environment variable and start PAB installation again.
During a Messaging Server upgrade, also upgrade Administration Server. (552015)
During an upgrade, a screen appears offering the following options:
1. Netscape Server Products Core Components (3)
2. Netscape Directory Suite (2)
3. Administration Services (2)
4. Netscape Messaging Suite (4)
Specify the components you wish to install [All]:
The number in parentheses, (), represents the number of additional subcomponents; these subcomponents are accessible in subsequent screens.
At the very least, select options 3 (Administration Services) and 4 (Netscape Messaging Suite).
When upgrading from Netscape Messaging Server Patch 6 or a previous patch to Netscape Messaging Server Patch 7or a future patch, if you choose only option 4, afterwards you will not be able to start Administration Server.
Installing 4.15 p1 NT on top of an existing installation installs MMP and Mailstone tools by default. (393848)
Mail Multiplexor (MMP) and Mailstone tools are installed by default when 4.15 patch 1 NT is installed on an existing 4.15 server. The PopProxy and ImapProxy services are then running on the default ports and can cause various problems with popd crashes and high CPU usage.
The workaround is to disable the MMP services. The problem does not appear on a clean installation of the patch.
Installer fails silently when there is no domain name. (381850)
A "localhost" installation on a system that was not connected to the network failed when only a hostname was defined. No "msg-localhost" directory was created, but the installer did not report any errors.
The install will work after changing the fully qualified host name from "localhost.localdomain" to "localhost.local.domain."
If you install the product without enabling SSL, error messages appear in the log file when the corresponding server is started. (363752)
These messages can be safely ignored.
Solution: By default, SSL is enabled for all services. To disable SSL for each service without generating any error messages, use the following command (for example, to disable SSL for SMTP):
configutil service.smtp.sslusessl no
During upgrade, Messaging Server does not always rewrite the /etc/nsserver.cfg file properly. (351603)
Solution: If you install Messaging Server on the same UNIX machine more than once, make sure the /etc/nsserver.cfg file contains, on the first line, the server-root of the Messaging Server you will be using.
The uninstall process does not remove alternate queues or non-primary message store partitions. (355963)
If you have multiple queues, the uninstall process will remove the default queue, but not alternate queues. If you have multiple partitions, the uninstall process will remove only the primary partition, not the non-primary message store partitions.
Solution: You will need to delete any alternate queues or subpartitions manually.
If you are upgrading from a 3.x Messaging Server to Messaging Server 4.15 Patch 2, the autoreply messages and mail routing table entries are not migrated. (357053)
Solution: You will need to save the 3.x information and re-create the entries for Messaging Server 4.15 patch 3.
If you are upgrading from a 3.x Messaging Server to Messaging Server 4.15 Patch 2, and you have more than one LocalMailDomain entry in the 3.x /etc/netscape.mail.conf file, the entries are not migrated. (357055)
Solution: You will need to save the 3.x information and re-create the entries for Messaging Server 4.15 Patch 2.
End-user administrator user DN and group DN are not configurable. (355146)
Solution: If you want to create a custom DN for the end-user administrator, you must create these entries manually before the installation. You must create the end-user administrator group DN with the common name Enduser Administrators ("cn=Enduser Administrators"). You can create the end-user administrator user DN using any UID.
Directory Server installation will attempt to restart SNMP services on Windows NT. (357053)
The Messaging Server properly stops all dependent services before stopping the SNMP service, but if the Directory Server is installed on the same machine, it will attempt to restart the SNMP service, which causes the installation to hang.
Solution: Manually stop the SNMP service before installing the Messaging and Directory Servers on a Windows NT system. Alternatively, install the Directory Server on a different system (recommended to avoid resource contention).
Problem starting Netscape Messaging Server services on Red Hat 6.2 Linux
After installing Netscape Messaging Server 4.15p4 on Red Hat 6.2 Linux, trying to start the services manually or from the Console causes the following error message:
./start-msg: /usr/netscape/server4/bin/msg/admin/bin/NscpMsg: No such file or directory
Solution: Linux does not ship with the ksh shell installed. Correct this problem with either of the following solutions:
You may receive the following error message during installation: "The network port number is invalid." (341627)
This message may appear even though the first port tested is not in use.
Solution: Re-enter the port number and it will be accepted the second time. If the install still reports the port is in use, then there is something active on the port.
There is a bug in glibc 2.1.1 that can cause SEGV faults of multi-threaded processes on SMP (symmetric multi-processor) systems. (355966)
Solution: Upgrade to glibc 2.1.2.
To determine which version of glibc you are running, type:
Creating a user with the preferred language of Icelandic requires a workaround. (556083)
For the Icelandic language, no server-root/msg-instance/html/is directory exists, nor does it properly transfer to English as the default.
Solution: Copy the English HTML files to a newly created "is" directory.
Machine might hang when Netscape Messaging Server runs with VXFS. (552980)
In some situations, Netscape Messaging Server writes out very large blocks of data (as much as an entire mailbox), causing VXFS to switch to direct I/O. Then, VXVM is forced to deal with a block of data larger than the value of the voliomem_max_memory configuration variable. Since VXVM cannot handle this amount of data, it stalls and the system hangs.
Solution: In order to increase the VXVM memory limits, go to file /etc/system, and add or change the following settings:
vxio:voliomem_max_memory=0x1a00000
vxio:voliomem_kvmap_size=0x1e00000
The reconstruct utility sets the message store quota to "no limit." (550232, 521395)
The reconstruct utility is used to rebuild mailboxes or mailbox databases that are corrupted or that contain inconsistencies. During the reconstruction process, this utility—as it applies to options -m and -q—does not look up the mailquota or the mailmsgquota attribute in LDAP, but instead sets the message store quota to "no limit." Unless "no limit" is the correct value for all users in the message store, the quota and quotacheck utilities will report invalid quota values.
Solution: After running reconstruct -m or -q, run iminitquota -a to reinitialize the message store quota.
Web Mail: Some messages are truncated when placed into the "sent" folder. (517694)
Some messages are truncated, on slower machines with small amounts of memory, due to timing issues in Internet Explorer builds before 5.5 0.4522.1800. The current code sets the delay to 100 milliseconds before the JavaScript function "submit" is executed. By increasing the delay to 1000, with Internet Explorer builds earlier than the recommended 5.5 0.4522.1800, Internet Explorer will use the delay to complete loading of the data (header and message) into memory before sending it off to the server. The maximum delay is 1200 milliseconds. Using the recommended build of Internet Explorer 5.5 0.4522.1800 or later, the increased time delay is not necessary.
smtpd should not be configured to use more than 256 file descriptors. (397590)
On Solaris, if the MTA (smtpd) uses all the file descriptors below 256, the MTA may experience random failures opening files, particularly if plug-ins are used. Use caution when adjusting minruncounts for the MTA upward (especially for SMTP-Accept) and monitor the file descriptor usage to ensure it does not exceed 256 under load.
Webmail Online Help doesn't explain Preferred Language Setting. (351812)
The online help is unclear about what the Preferred Language setting applies to in the "Personal Information" Options screen. The text that has been added to the 5.0 release of help explains that the user interface elements can be presented in another language. The user can select one of the available languages from the drop-down list.
Mail for root or other local users cannot be delivered.
You should create these accounts on the Directory Server using the Netscape Console or the MigrateUnixSpool utility. The messaging server does not consult /etc/passwd for local accounts.
mailbox autocreate fails with multiple message hostnames (388443)
When service.smtp.messagehostname is set to multiple values, like, "siroe.com,mail1.emailsif.siroe.com", new user's mailboxes fail to autocreate. If service.smtp.messagehostname is set to just "mail1.emailsif.siroe.com", auto-creation works fine. It appears if the first entry in the service.smtp.messagehostname list does not match the user's mailhost name, the auto-create fails.
Solution: Running mboxutil -c user/newuser/INBOX creates the new user's mail box correctly, and login is then successful.
The user's mailhost attribute MUST be set to the first value in the MessageHostname parameter.
On Windows NT, the -F option of the deliver command does not work. (381927)
Solution: A -g option has been added as a synonym to the -F option. Use the -g option instead:
# deliver -a sender -g \SEEN recipient test_message_file
Note: The Windows NT shell does not do backslash quoting and therefore requires only one backslash (/) character.
Some window managers will not place the Netscape Console login window over the logo window. (367239)
Solution: Either use a different window manager, or run startconsole with the -x,nologo parameter. For example:
# server-root/startconsole -x,nologo
Authentication may fail if the hostname returned by NIS is not the same as the one returned by DNS.
Solution: Edit /etc/nsswitch.conf to search DNS before searching NIS. Change the following line:
On Windows NT, If more than one popd process is running, then none of them accept a TCP connection. (379203)
Solution: Change the service.pop.numprocesses, server.imap.numprocesses, and service.http.numprocesses to their default value of one (1).
The Messaging Server and Directory Server cannot be upgraded at the same time. (369067, 369057)
The Directory Server holds the installation information for the Messaging Server. During an upgrade, the Directory Server is stopped and is unavailable to the installer.
Solution: To upgrade both servers, simply upgrade the Directory Server and the Messaging Server separately.
For Windows NT, the version of NativeToAscii shipped with the product does not work with Korean or Simplified Chinese. (366604)
Solution: Set the NS_NLS_DATADIRECTORY variable as follows:
Messaging Server sends incorrect timezone information for Singapore. (341272)
Solution: In the /etc/NscpMsg script, set the timezone (TZ) for Messaging Server by adding the following line after the LANG= variable:
Using a backslash character (\) in an over-quota message can cause problems. (352208)
If you include a backslash character (\) in an over-quota message, Messaging Server cannot parse the message and will not deliver the message to the user.
Solution: When specifying an over-quota message, do not use a backslash character (\) in the message.
Messaging Multiplexor might not handle the "e" attribute in FilterComps in the certmap.conf file. (337269)
Solution: You can correct this problem by changing the line in the certmap.conf file from:
#default:FilterComps e, uid, ...
#default:FilterComps mail, uid, ...
Please note the following corrections and updates to the Messaging Server 4.15 and 4.15 patch 1 to patch 6 documentation:
Documentation incorrectly notes a limitation with mboxutil -r. (555957)
The Netscape Messaging Server Administrator's Guide states the following:
Note that you cannot rename a user's INBOX. Nor can you use mboxutil -r to move mail stored under one user ID to another user ID.
The first sentence "Note that you cannot rename a user's INBOX," is correct. However, the second sentence "Nor can you use mboxutil -r to move mail stored under one user ID to another user ID" is incorrect. It is possible to move mail stored under one user ID to another user ID.
Documentation does not sufficiently describe the proxyauth command. (534086)
If either service.http.proxydomainallowed is set and matches the client address, or service.http.proxydomainallowed is not set but service.http.allowadminproxy is set to true, theproxyauth command is enabled in mshttpd.
MoveUser documentation error (536957)
The Netscape Messaging Server Administrator's Guide incorrectly describes the MoveUser -s option.
Solution: The correct description for the MoveUser -s option is as follows:
By default, MoveUser assumes IMAP port 143. To specify a different port, add a colon and the port number after srcmailhost. For example, to specify port 150 for myhost, you would enter:
Documentation does not describe the -D_REENTRANT option (527680)
The Netscape Messaging Server documentation does not describe the -D_REENTRANT option.
Solution: When compiling Netscape Messaging Server plug-ins on the Solaris platform using the GNU gcc compiler, the -D_REENTRANT option must be used to ensure that the plug-in is reentrant (thread-safe). Otherwise, it is not compatible with the Netscape Messaging Server. This define ensures that certain OS library and system calls use the correct version of a function call.
When using other compilers or other platforms, similar measures might need to be taken (for example, using the -mt switch with the Sun C/C++ compiler). Using this switch does not relieve the developer of the plug-in from using only known reentrant interfaces as documented (for example, gethostbyname_r() must still be used in place of gethostbyname()). Using this define on Solaris simply ensures that interfaces documented as "MT Safe" remain so.
Search by Truncated Domain does not work (441949)
If a mail is sent to user@serverhost.dom.com where "serverhost" is the name of the server, this feature is triggered. The host part is skipped, and the search is resumed for the address "user@dom.com". It works only if the host part is that of this server.
Search using truncated domain. In some environments, you might want the server to ignore the first component of a domain when searching for an address in LDAP. This allows the server to handle mail sent to recipient@server instead of recipient@domain. For example, assume mail arrives for joe@foo.airius.com. With the "search using truncated domain" feature enabled, if no LDAP entry for Joe@foo.airius.com is found, the server will search for Joe@airius.com. Consequently, Joe can receive messages addressed to Joe@anything.airius.com as well as Joe@airius.com.
Solution: Rely on the truncation feature for searches only on the current machine. For example, the server will only truncate domain anothermachine.domain.com to domain.com on the server anothermachine.
Document the limitation of creating files under the Control Directory on Netscape Messaging Server (436949)
If files are created under the Control Directory, the Messaging Server cannot always deliver all deferred messages to the user's mailbox or other hosts after restarting.
Solution: Do not create files under the Control Directory.
UBE documentation in Admin Guide needs revision (402057)
The Admin Guide incorrectly documents the following actions for UBE:
RUN has been disabled since Netscape Messaging Server 4.02 and the variants of HOLD work differently in 4.x.
RUN should be removed as a valid action and noted that it was removed from 4.x. HOLDCOPY and HOLDONLY should be listed as deprecated. They place messages in a special hold directory, but messages are not handled as they were in 3.x as there is no special 'Held' status for messages (as there was in 3.x) and thus no postmaster action for these. The only tracking provided for messages processed by HOLDCOPY and HOLDONLY is their presence in the special 'Hold' directory and the fact that they are logged in the SMTP log.
Requesting Documentation for smtprewritestyle value 'none' (396168)
The smtprewritestyle value 'none' is not documented.
Solution: set smtprewritestyle to 'none' rewrites the address, but only makes the host name into a fully-qualified domain name. It does not alter the local portion or add a comment or quoted field if missing.
Webmail PAB installation instructions should say to use o=pab. (393032)
The Webmail PAB installation instructions documented in http://docs.iplanet.com/docs/manuals/messaging/nms415/patch1/relnotes.html#pab are unclear at the step where you configuring the Personal Address Book Directory Server Base DN [ o=base DN ]. The instructions say that you should press Return to accept this default value. The correct value is o=pab, but the default may not be defined as such. Make sure that the correct value is selected.
The instructions contained in this patch have been corrected.
Duplicate 'Searching for Addresses' links in Webmail Help (387536)
Under the 'Working for Addresses' section in Webmail Help, there are two 'Searching for Addresses' links. The first one should be titled, 'Creating a New Address Entry' instead.
If you are installing Messaging Server 4.15 from a CD, the installation instructions contain an extra step. (380827)
The Installation Guide says to untar the Messaging Server 4.15 bits found on the CD. There is no need to do this since it is not a tar file.
Disabling Language Lookup Capability. (367811, 362966)
The MTA looks up the language to be used when it performs international functionality as explained in the Administrator's Guide.
A new configurable parameter, local.service.smtp.sitelanguageonly, can be set to yes to disable the MTA language lookup capability so that it sticks to the value defined by gen.sitelanguage. This might be preferable if you want to automatically see generated messages in a particular language.
Messenger Express online help provides incorrect instructions for localizing the Messenger Express UI. (357517)
The instructions read as follows:
Instead, the instructions should be:
Localization. The server-root/MSGinstance/html directory contains a directory for each language. Contained within each language directory is a copy of the i18n.js file. This file contains all the string values associated with the i18n array elements. Replace the string pair with the relevant language. To localize the online help, modify the help.html file.
If you have problems with iPlanet Messaging Server, contact iPlanet customer support using one of the following mechanisms:
http://iplanet.com/support/index.html
From this location, the CaseTracker and CaseView tools are available for logging problems.
So that we can best assist you in resolving problems, please have the following information available when you contact support:
For Messaging Server 4.15 patch 7installation instructions, visit:
http://docs.iplanet.com/docs/manuals/messaging/nms41/install/contents.htm
Installation instructions, release notes, the administrator's guide, and related documents are posted at the location:
http://docs.iplanet.com/docs/manuals/messaging.html
Installation instructions and release notes for all Netscape servers are posted at the location.
If you can't find the information you need, please contact Technical Support.
Useful iPlanet information can be found at the following Internet locations:
Use of Netscape Messaging Server is subject to the terms described in the license agreement accompanying it. Copyright © 2001 Sun Microsystems, Inc. Some preexisting portions Copyright © 2001 Netscape Communications Corp. All rights reserved. Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Java, iPlanet, and all Sun, Java, and iPlanet based trademarks and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Netscape and the Netscape N logo are registered trademarks of Netscape Communications Corporation in the US and other countries. Other Netscape logos, product names, and service names are also trademarks of Netscape Communications Corporation, which may be registered in other countries.
Last Updated October 30, 2001